18 August 2001 Middlesbrough 0 Arsenal 4: the start of the great away games run.
The run continued until 28 September 2002 when Arsenal beat Leeds 4-1 away, to break the record by scoring in 47 consecutive games and making it 22 away games without defeat Sol Campbell played his first league game for Arsenal and Henry said afterwards, “I saw something today I never saw last season – we played as a team. It’s the most important thing in football.”
It is perhaps worth noting a few of the other events from this 2001/2 period. Here they are…
14 April 2001 Arsenal 0 Middlesbrough3. The last game without an Arsenal goal at Highbury before the run.
21 April 2001 Arsenal 4 Everton 1 – the start of the sequence of scoring in every game at Highbury.
19 May 2001 Southampton 3 Arsenal 2 – but Arsenal launch the record run of scoring in 47 consecutive games.
18 August 2001 Middlesbrough 0 Arsenal 4 – the start of the run of away games without defeat.
28 September 2002 Leeds 1 Arsenal 4 breaking the record by scoring in 47 consecutive games. And…
28 September 2002 Leeds 1 Arsenal 4 – 22 away games without defeat.
30 November 2002 Arsenal 3 Aston Villa 1. The last game of the sequence of Arsenal games without failing to score
17 August 1971: West Ham 0 Arsenal 0
Match 2 from the first Double season thus making it played 2, drawn 2, showing that one should never draw too many conclusions from the opening games.
Although Arsenal entered 1970/71 season on a high having won a European competition for the first time, they were still often reminded by a belligerent press that they had not won any major domestic competition since the league trophy of 1953. Worse, they were the nearly men, the team that “bottled it” at the last minute, due to the League Cup final defeats to Leeds (the league’s new stellar team, according to the press) and Swindon (the biggest shock of the century, also according to the press) in the two previous seasons.
But if the media thought that their raging negativity could goad Arsenal into making new major signings to bolster the team at the start of the season, they were not there.
David Court was sold to Luton Town having missed out on the Fairs Cup final games through injury. He had played 168 league games league games for Arsenal, and in 1996 he returned to Arsenal as head of youth development.
But in terms of transfers, nothing else was happening even though in those days transfers were allowed until the last six weeks of the season..
Pre-season had been ok with mostly wins against lesser teams (Kungsbacka BI 0 Arsenal 5 was the highlight)
And so the season began… On 15 August there was a 2-2 away draw with Everton. Charlie George broke his ankle, and the press called the game “trench warfare,” which was pretty much the going rate for comments on Arsenal games. It was almost as if the journalists were out to get their own back at the club for having the temerity of winning the Fairs Cup last season.
The team for this first game, in numerical order was Wilson, Rice, McNab, Kelly, McLintock, Roberts, Armstrong, Storey, Radford, George, Graham. When Charlie George was injured Marinello came on as a substitute (only one sub per game being allowed).
For the second match on 17 August, Marinello took over Charlie George’s number 10 shirt and Ray Kennedy came on to partner Radford up front. Storey dropped back to right back to replace the injured Pat Rice.
The game ended West Ham United 0 Arsenal 0 thus making it played 2, drawn 2, showing that one should never draw too many conclusions from the opening games – but lessons were learned. Marinello (Arsenal’s record signing at the time) returned to the subs bench for the next game, but was then seen no more, until he got a brief run of eight league matches in 1971-72 and thirteen in 1972-73.
The reason for his demise was a combination of knee injuries, and a lifestyle that did not enhance his ability to play, and certainly did not meet with the approval of the austere club management. Bertie Mee was a disciplinarian who focussed on the players’ health. Marinello did not fit the bill and eventually left Arsenal in July 1973 for Portsmouth.
Ray Kennedy on the other hand was a revelation, and perhaps we can contrast the life of Marinello who had it all on a plate, and Kennedy who was told by none other than Sir Stanley Matthews when manager of Port Vale that he was not good enough to play as a professional (and who thus went back to working in a sweet factory). Now Ray Kennedy took over the number 10 shirt and stayed as the second centre forward through the rest of the season, becoming one of eight (yes eight!) players to play 40 or more league games out of 42. An astonishing record. Kennedy ended the season with 19 goals from his 41 games.
But at this stage it was two games played, and no wins. Fortunately the natives were not as restless as they are these days.
16 August 1925/2003: Arsenal buy Highbury, Arsenal start the Unbeaten Season.
16 August 1925: Arsenal buy Highbury, 16 August 2003: Arsenal start the Unbeaten Season.
There is something very satisfying about the fact that 16 August is the anniversary of the day Arsenal bought Highbury, and the anniversary of the day that saw the start of by far the greatest ever Arsenal season.
Arsenal bought Highbury for £64,000 on this day in 1925, which was about one tenth of the cost of some of the more interesting apartments in the redeveloped Highbury when the land was redeveloped following the opening of the Emirates Stadium.
In common with business leases then, as now, this was a full repairing lease, which meant that by and large Norris could do anything he liked with the land (apart from sell alcohol there and use it for public entertainment on Good Friday and Christmas Day). But the deal was that if, when the lease ended, St John’s College wanted the land back for their own use, they could take it back, and demand that the land was put back into its original form.
Now Norris would have recognised that when he took over the land in 1913 St John’s had a problem, and he would have taken this into account. St John’s was a college that took men – often working class men – who were moved to take up holy orders through a reading of the Bible. However shortly before Arsenal came knocking at the door, the Church of England had changed its ordination regulations to the effect that only men with degrees could become ministers of the church. As such St John’s had a problem. It could teach its young men about holy scripture, but at the end of their training they would not get themselves a Church of England parish.
This meant that their income was diminishing – hence the sale – and with the Church of England highly unlikely to change its rule, it seemed that St John’s was unlikely to come into enough money to make it able to cope without the monthly rent from Arsenal.
It is interesting to see this from Arsenal’s point of view. By renting rather than buying Arsenal were able to use all the capital it could raise on ground development. So the arrangement suited both sides.
The rent is reported to have been £20,000, and the purchase price £60,000 – which makes the purchase price seem incredibly cheap – just three yeas rent. I’ve not seen the original documents so I can’t verify this, but if it is true, it suggests St Johns really was in financial trouble and needed the money now, to pay off its debts, before it closed down.
What we can assume is that Norris would have been happier with a lease than a purchase at the start, since so much work needed to be undertaken on the ground, so it is possible that there was an agreement to buy, within the original lease.
According to the Land Registry when the purchase was made in 1925 the ground was known as The Arsenal Football Ground and in the first Highbury programme in 1913 there was a comment that the directors would welcome suggestions from fans for a name for the ground.
It is said in some quarters that the deed of transfer for the property was signed by the Archbishop of Canterbury – but that would suggest that the land was owned by the Church of England, which doesn’t accord with the facts we do know.
Besides the College was set up by a private benefactor – and it was the fact that he put nothing in the deeds to stipulate how the land should be used that allowed the college to sell to Arsenal.
And there is something pleasing also that the greatest season in the history of Arsenal – the Unbeaten Season – also started on this day: 16 August 2003 with Arsenal 2 Everton 1. Campbell was sent off on 25 mins for a foul outside the area, Henry scored a penalty on 35, Vieira was yellow carded on 41m and Pires scored the winner on 58. Everton got a consolation on 84 before Li was sent off on 87. And so the greatest season ever began.
5 August 2009. Everton 1 Arsenal 6.
The result took Setanta TV who showed it live, by surprise as they had lined up an array of ex-Evertonians to interview through the game and said how sad it was that these eminent ex-players should have to watch this defeat. Thus TV celebration of Arsenal’s stunning performance was there none. It was ever thus. Denilson, Vermaelen, Gallas, Fàbregas (2) and Eduardo scored the goals.
It was a fun start. Not great. For the most part Everton gave the impression of being on Valium. But given what appeared to be a testing game for the first of the season, it was a performance to bring a hint of a smile to even the most pessimistic Arsenal supporter. Probably our 6 injuries cancelled out the two of Arteta and Jagielka suffered by Everton so it was a great confidence builder.
There were many performances that stood out. Vermaelen was very impressive and marked his debut with a well taken goal, though if truth be told, had a similar goal been scored at our end the usual cries would have gone up that we can’t defend set pieces. Indeed, only Denilson, having scored a candidate for goal of the season after good work by Nic and Cesc, saved us from the same fate a few minutes later.
This style and approach released Cesc to do his thing. 2 goals and 2 assists is no bad start. Quite what Everton were thinking of when he scored his second is unknown. But they could well have been given swords and dress uniform to give him a guard of honour.
14 August 1996. Arsenal sign Patrick Vieira for £3.5m
The first Arsène Wenger signings were made on this day: Remi Garde (on a free transfer) who was signed to be Mr Wenger’s eyes and ears in the changing room, and Patrick Vieira who came as a total unknown for £3.5m. Mr Wenger was still in Japan ending his contract and both players arrived carrying injuries.
Tony Adams did not particularly help the reputation of English football by making the comment, “He’s French – what does he know about English football”, and we all waited while Pat Rice was stand-in manager.
But Mr Wenger did know Arsenal, and he knew Milan where Vieira played, and he knew Patrick. And he knew Milan were making one hell of a mistake by leaving Patrick to rot in the reserves. So he ordered the club to buy Patrick Vieira which the board dutifully did.
Of course we’d never heard of him, and a reserve player for that price didn’t sound groundbreaking. We were, frankly, hoping for a bit more.
Worse, Patrick was injured when he came to us, so we didn’t see him. Which meant we had a manager in Japan, and the signing of an unknown player who was injured.
Anyway, with a team of Seaman, Dixon, Winterburn, Jensen, Bould, Linighan, Platt, Wright, Parlour, Harston and Merson we knocked Sheff W around 4-1 (a Wright hat trick).
Then for his first game on came Patrick as a sub for Platt. We watched this man mountain come in, and sat there with mouths open. He took control of the centre, he ran the defence – and that was after five minutes of playing running the team and the match, and he’s only been playing for 5 minutes.”
That was the impact Patrick made. It was extraordinary from the start. Completely different from Thierry Henry who did not make that great an impact at the beginning of his time with us – Patrick just walked in and took over.
Overall he won three League trophies and four FA Cups. After leaving us he made the awful error of going to Juve, who were relegated for their part in “irregularities”. Patrick played 107 times for France and won the World Cup and Euro 2000 with them. And we bought him for £3.5m.
Perhaps most of all we remember that Patrick was the captain of the Invincibles – the greatest Arsenal team ever. And to round off my personal tribute, I remember also of course the final game of that amazing season. We had won the league, and just needed a draw against relegated Leicester to become unbeaten. Sir Alex Ferguson had made comments to the fact that he remembered being in a Rangers side unbeaten all season who had lost the last game. As if there was a comparison.
But, of course, we went one-nil down at half time. I was shaking – literally shaking – through the half time. Couldn’t even have a drink. I just sat there thinking, this can’t happen. And then, if I recall it right, Henry got the penalty and Patrick scored to give us the winner.
And we stayed in the ground for hours after the game.
One last memory. 28 March 2006 – he played against us in the Champs League. That was the moment Robert Pires tackled him, and got the ball – and from that moment we went on to score. Sorry Patrick – but if you must leave Arsenal, these things happen.
Patrick played 407 times for Arsenal and scored 34 times. I don’t kid myself that ex-players would ever read my ramblings – but still, it feels good to pay my compliments to one of the Masters.
13 August 1988: Arsenal 4 Tottenham 0,
If you want a nice buzzy way to start the season, a 4-0 win over Tottenham in a pre-season friendly will surely do it. Merson, Marwood (2) and Smith scored and Tottenham were shocking.
The Makita tournament was a summer mini-series in London, which Arsenal organized initially as the Wembley International Tournament in August 1988. In a sense it was the precursor of the Emirates Cup until that was abolished under instruction from the Olympik Committee Diktat Division when the Olympics came to London.
Tottenham went on to lose to Milan 2-1 while Arsenal also beat Bayern Munich 3-0 with Smith getting two and Dixon the other so we won the cup.
So Arsenal fans were happy, and the jollity continued. True, the first five games of the season had a bit of up and down in them – with an away win of 5-1 against Wimbledon on the opening day (this was in the days when Arsenal fans were allocated three sides of the Wimbledon ground), but then Arsenal ludicrously lost to Villa at home.
Next we beat Tottenham again, away, 3-2 and then drew with Southampton at home. And then we lost to Sheffield Wednesday away 2-1.
Some supporters were miserable to the point of rebellion (at least according to an article I wrote for the Arsenal History Society site) but those who were hopeful, noting the way the team was developing, proved to be right.
Six wins and a draw in the next seven, followed by another five wins in a row a little later. On Boxing Day we beat Charlton away to go top, and we ended the season with, oh what was it, I can’t quite recall, some sort of game at, err, Liverpool. We won 2-0.
The story of that year is of course told endlessly, but rarely with that little preliminary included at Wembley. Over those couple of days we knew we were good. Later we discovered just how good.
12 August 2007: Arsenal continue their 27 match unbeaten run.
So all encompassing has the “49” unbeaten run and the unbeaten season itself become, in terms of Arsenal history, and so overwhelming the baying of the journalists who insist that nothing is right because Arsenal have not won the league for a number of years, that it is easy to forget other terrific runs that Arsenal have had.
The 2007 run was one such that needs to be remembered. It began on 9 April 2007 in an inauspicious goalless draw away to Newcastle, as Arsenal ended the season with a seven game unbeaten run.
And yet we have to admit that four of those games were draws. But on 12 August at the start of the new season Arsenal beat Fulham 2-1 as they continued with a 20 match unbeaten run in League and European games.
Arsenal then continued their unbeaten run from the end of the previous season by beating Fulham 2-1 in the opening day’s game; Van Persie and Hleb scoring. Arsenal played 19 more games before facing defeat – in the Champions League. 21 games if you want to include the league cup as well.
And this time the run was no dominated by draws – there were 17 wins and just four draws in that run including such notables as
- 15 September: Tottenham 1 Arsenal 3
- 22 September Arsenal 5 Derby 0
- 23 October Arsenal 7 Steaua București 0
The run finally ended on 27 November with Sevilla 3 Arsenal 1
11 August 1979 and 2002: losing and winning to Liverpool in the Charity Shield
1979: Arsenal lost 3-1 to Liverpool in the Charity Shield. The crowd of 92,000 was Arsenal’s highest ever for a charity shield game.
This was Arsenal’s tenth Charity Shield appearance and Liverpool’s ninth but was also Arsenal’s first appearance in the Shield since 12 October 1953. Arsenal’s team was…
Jennings, Rice, Nelson (Young), Talbot, O’Leary, Walford, Brady, Sunderland, Stapleton, Price (Hollins), Rix.
Liverpool were not just the firm favourites they were the absolute favourites, having gained a record number of first division points the previous season, and conceded the fewest goals in a 42-game Football League season – just 16.
However, although everyone expected Liverpool to dominate they failed to create chances in the match and Stapleton came close to scoring early on.
But as half-time approached, Kennedy, so very much part of Arsenal at the start of the decade, and a man who should never ever have been allowed to leave but was now with Liverpool, passed to McDermott who scored.
Arsenal looked as if they could make it back in the second half until Sammy Nelson collided with McDermott and went off concussed with Willie Young coming on as a replacement. As Arsenal tried to adjust Liverpool scored the second.
With the balance of the team gone Hollins came on for David Price, and once again, as Arsenal re-adjusted Liverpool scored. Alan Sunderland scored a consolation goal for Arsenal.
2002: 23 years to the day after Arsenal played Liverpool in the Charity Shield, Gilberto Silva played his first competitive match for Arsenal (after the usual pre-season tour) against Liverpool in Community Shield. Gilberto scored the only goal.
As for what happened next… on 18 August with Tony Adams having retired, Patrick Vieira took over as captain for the first game of the season. It was Arsenal 2 Birmingham 0 and what made that important was that this victory made it 14 consecutive wins in the Premier League, a new record for the top division in England. The record of 13 consecutive wins was jointly held by Tottenham, Sunderland and Preston North End.
It was a doddle. Thierry Henry scored from a free-kick and Sylvain Wiltord showed us what he could do all on his own, to make it 2-0 ahead after 24 minutes. Arsenal then strolled through the match. Birmingham’s central contribution was that they got Aliou Cisse sent off 17 minutes from the end.
10 August 2003 Arsenal lost in the Community Shield match having returned 8000 of their tickets due to lack of fan interest.
So maybe the fans knew the game wasn’t going to be up to much. Maybe they didn’t have much faith that the season could be anything special.
Lehmann in goal made his first competitive start for Arsenal: the media were not impressed. Silvestre scored for Manchester United but Henry equalised for Arsenal from a free-kick. Jeffers was sent off in the second half and Man United won the game 4–3 on penalties.
The game of course concluded the pre-season which had begun with a defeat to Peterborough, a goalless draw with Barnet and a 2-2 draw with SC Ritzing.
Arsenal did manage to win against Austria Wien, Besitkas, and St Albans City but never by more than two goals, but then drew with Celtic. So another draw and a penalty defeat was pretty much what was expected for the rest of pre-season.
The Shield game was overshadowed by the scandal of the FA being found guilty by the Charity Commission of misusing the funds taken allegedly for donation to charities, and of not keeping proper records of which charities had benefited from the game in the past. Their response was simply to change the name to the Community Shield.
Predictions in the media for the season ahead were that Arsenal could make the top four but nothing more than that. After three games the Times reported that Arsenal fans were saying that this was the worst Arsenal team they had ever seen.
Arsenal did win their first four league games but lost two and drew one of their first three Champions League games. Any talk of going unbeaten through the league season would have been met with hollow laughter.
Indeed Alex Ferguson was still saying it was impossible in April.
9 August 1998: Arsenal beat Man U 3-0 in Charity Shield, winning it for the ninth time
Overmars, Wreh and Anelka scored.
The Charity Shield (renamed the Community Shield after the Charity Commissioners sued the FA for failing to keep the records required by law for any organisation engaged in charitable work) has become something of a downgraded affair with clubs sometimes putting out weakened teams, as a result of international matches played through the summer.
But in 1998 it was something special for Arsenal fans with the club having gone on a 12 match winning streak to win the league and reach the cup final in which they beat Newcastle 2-0, thus winning the Double.
The Charity Shield match on 9 August was a memorable affair, and we have two videos of it – a shortened highlights version of modest quality, and the full match starting with the walk from inside the tunnel and the two managers walking out side by side. Both videos are available on our post for today on the History Society website at: Arsenal smash Man U in the Community Shield 3-0 in 1998 – the videos
And perhaps we might look back to a few earlier Charity Shields starting on 8 October 1930 when Arsenal won the Charity Shield beating Sheffield Wednesday 2-1 in front of a crowd of 25,000 at Stamford Bridge. It was Arsenal’s first appearance in the annual match, and started a run of five wins in the 1930s.
The team for the first match was
Keyser
Parker Hapgood
Seddon Roberts John
Hulme Brain Lambert Jack Bastin
Hulme and Jack were the scorers.
What is now the Community Shield came out of an earlier competition which started out in 1899 as a professionals vs amateurs annual cup. After the amateurs had a falling out with the FA there was a change over to the winners of the Football League playing the winners of the Southern League. As such Herbert Chapman got an early taste of the competition, when the Northampton Town team of which he was manager became champions of the Southern League for the first and only time in 1909 and so went on to the Charity Shield match.
The idea of Cup winners v Champions started in 1921 but it was not consistently in this format until 1930. But even since there have been times when it has not been played in this way. In 1950 England played an “FA XI”, in 1961 Tottenham having won the double for their one and only time, played the FA XI again.
In 1971 after winning the double Arsenal had a real problem. So unlikely had a cup or league win seemed earlier in the season, they had arranged a pre-season tour – and were unwilling to break the contract. So Liverpool played Leicester!!!
This set a trend and the following year both Derby (league champions) and Leeds (FA Cup winners) refused to play so Man City played Villa for no apparent reason.
Then, with the FA in its usual state of incompetence and disrepute, in 2002 the Charity Commission found that Football Association had failed to meet its fairly basic and obvious legal obligations under the Charities Act as it failed to say where the money was going, and had regularly delayed paying out anything at all. Instead of being honourable and sorting out the mess, the FA did what we might expect: it simply renamed the trophy the Community Shield. Arsenal were the first winners.
The highest scoring game was Man U 8 Swindon 4 – with the money going to the Titanic Disaster fund. Arsenal are the second most successful club in the competition, behind only Mancheseter United.
